The Kidnapping of Robin Howell
by annoxford
Summary: The kidnapping of Robin Howell (the little girl from the Pilot episode) from a different point of view.
1. Chapter 1

ROBIN TOOK THE SAME ROUTE TO HER GRANDFATHER'S HOUSE every day.

As he mother prepared her, Robin was reminded for the billionth time that she was _not, _under any circumstances, to take any shortcuts.

"You take the route I was telling you about, and _only _the route I was telling you about, correct?" Her mother asked.

"Yes, Mommy." Robin sighed.

Robin was wearing her favorite outfit: striped shirt, purple leggings, and little brown shoes. Her mother handed her the red sweatshirt she liked and her pink and purple backpack with a glittery silver R on it. She had written her initials, R.H., on it in permanent marker.

"Be careful, sweetie." Her mother said, kissing her on the top of her head.

"I will, Mommy. Love you." She replied.

"Love you too." Her mother said.

Robin turned around and walked out of her house and onto her street. As she walked down her street, she saw all the people she usually saw. There was her elderly neighbor, Mrs. Todd. Then she passes the Jennings' house. The Jennings' had seven kids and they were all a little older or younger than Robin. They were also the only other kids on the block who would want to play with her. Then she passed Mr. Barry's house. Mr. Barry was a single guy who moved in the year before.

She passed a few more houses of people she didn't really know. As she was approaching the end of the street, Robin passed the mailman. She didn't know much about him, except he kind of creeped her out a little. Whenever she wore red, he would stare at her like a wolf stalking a deer. Robin usually tried to avoid him, but today, just as she was about to cross the road, she heard a car coming. So she was forced to walk past the creepy mailman. She could feel his eyes burning a hole in the back of her head.


	2. Chapter 2

ROBIN LOOKED OVER HER SHOULDER TO MAKE SURE NO ONE WAS LOOKING. Even though she doubted anyone would be looking at the woods, she wasn't going to take any chances. After she was certain that no one that was out and about would see her and consider calling her mother, she stepped onto the path that lead into the woods.

Even though her mother had it drilled into her head that she was _not _to take any shortcuts, Robin always ignored her, because she loved the woods. The birds chirping, the rustling of small animals scurrying through the branches above her head. It made her happy, and brought peace to her. It was especially nice when she was down, because the woods could do wonders to cheer her up.

Today, however, the woods were not their peaceful selves. The birds weren't chirping, which was normal in the winter, when they had all migrated south except for a few hardy little sparrows and chickadees, but it was only October, and she'd seen three sparrows, two chickadees, and a cardinal on her bird feeder the day before. Also, she felt as though she were being stalked by an invisible predator.

Robin paused, feeling uneasy, then began skipping and humming her favorite song. This was one of her other tactics for cheeriness when she couldn't walk in the woods. Usually, this worked very well, but today, there was no success. _Why isn't humming and skipping working? It always works. _Robin wondered.

Her adrenaline kicked in. Her heartbeat suddenly sped up. She paused and listened to the silent woods. Yes, there was definitely something- or someone- following her. The hair on the back of Robin's neck stood on end. That small, subconscious voice that lives in that back of the minds of all human beings was telling her that something was following her.

Robin began to run. For the first time since she started taking shortcuts through the woods, she was in a hurry to get out of there.

Suddenly, there was a loud CRACK, not unlike the noise that the big tree in her backyard had made after it was struck by lightning. Robin turned around just long enough to register that a man wearing blue had jumped through a dense thicket and was now chasing her.

Robin screamed and ran faster. She realized that her backpack was slowing her down. She said a silent apology to her mother, then whipped her backpack off her shoulders and threw it into some bushes on the side of the trail.

This single move slowed her down just long enough for the man in blue to launch himself at her, landing on top of the little girl.

Robin screamed, but halfway through, it was smothered by a large hand. Some type of thick fabric was slipped over her, making it hard to breathe. Robin realized it was a burlap sack.

The sack swung and hit Robin against the back of her captor as whoever they were walked to their lair.


	3. Chapter 3

AFTER AN ETERNITY, THEY STOPPED WALKING. Robin's sack was dropped on the ground. She heard her captor grumbling "Where did that key go?" then "Oh, there it is." There was a _snick _as a lock opened, and the Man in Blue started walking again.

Robin had long ago stopped crying and begging to be let go, because every time she did this, her captor would slam the sack against the ground and snap "Quite your wining!" Now her side hurt from continuous contact with the earth, and her cries had been reduced to silent sobs and the occasional whimper.

After a short amount of walking, he stopped again. He put Robin's sack down and she heard scraping noises like furniture being moved. Her sack was lifted up again. The Man in Blue walked down some steps, then stopped. Robin felt the sack tip and she slid out onto a bed.

She hugged her knees to her chest and gaze into the eyes of her captor.

The mailman.

Robin had always thought the mailman was freaky, but she'd never thought he was creepy and sick enough to kidnap someone.

Robin hugged her knees. Her breath came in scared, shallow breaths.

The mailman walked over and took her sweatshirt off. He walked over to a wardrobe in the corner of the room and opened it. All Robin saw inside of it was red. Red jackets, red sweaters, red sweatshirts. There was a big trunk next to the wardrobe filled with clothes. Man's clothes, women's clothes, children's clothes. _This guy could run a department store with all those clothes. _Robin thought.

The mailman closed the wardrobe and started to go up the stairs to the room. On the third step, he paused and turned around.

"Do you want a chicken pot-pie?" the mailman asked.

Robin shook her head.

The man's eyes turned red. "I'll make you one anyway. You may find that you're very hungry. I know I am."

Robin whimpered as the man's face did something extremely scary. It morphed. Into a wolf's.

Robin was really scared now. All she wanted was to go home and see her Mommy and her Daddy again. She wanted to see all seven of the Jennings kids and parents and Mr. Monroe, who had the awesomest Halloween and Christmas decorations in the whole wide world, who gave her cookies every Christmas, and who fixed her clocks when they weren't running right. She wanted to see Mrs. Todd and her bazillion cats. She even missed Barry, even though he threw loud parties and kept her up all night, sometimes.

_Let this be a dream. _Robin begged in her mind. _I promise I'll never go through the woods again, just let this be a horrible nightmare._


	4. Chapter 4

FOR A LONG TIME, ROBIN JUST SAT ON THE BED AND CRIED.

After she had cried so much that she couldn't shed another tear, she spent even more time sitting on the bed, wishing she had never taken that shortcut through the woods.

The room looked like the guest room in Mrs. Todd's house, where Robin had stayed once when her parents went on a "romantic vacation." The bed frame was a pretty yellowish shade that she'd seen in the store under the name "honey." There were soft blue sheets and a quilt on the mattress. The wardrobe looked like something that she saw while exploring her grandmother's attic. The trunk full of clothes looked like the one her mother had brought to college. The walls had needle

After a while, it became clear to Robin that the mailman was not going to let her go home.

So Robin decided to do what the brave little girls in movies always did. _WWNDD? _She thought. He mother always joked that she had an unhealthy obsession with Nancy Drew. _Maybe that obsession will turn out to not be so unhealthy anymore. _She thought.

She climbed the stairs/latter thingy and tried to open the trap door. _A trapdoor! I really have been kidnapped! _she thought. _Oh no, it's common for US mailmen to shove children in sacks and take them into creepy trapdoor guest rooms. _The sarcastic part of her replied.

She tried to open the trapdoor, but it was too heavy. _Dang it!_ she thought.

So she resorted to the good, old-fashioned method of banging on the door, 100% guaranteed to piss off your kidnapper.

Suddenly, there was that _scrape scrape _noise of furniture being moved, and a wave of pure terror washed over Robin.

So when the mailman's angry face peered down at her, she said the firstborn thing that came to mind: "I wanna go home." She said.

"You_ are _home." The mailman replied.

"No I'm not!" Robin wailed. "This is not home!"

The mailman's eyes went red. Suddenly, without warning, his jumped on top of her. She screamed, but was quickly cut off by his large hand. He put a cloth in her mouth so she couldn't talk. He took a roll of duct tape off of a dresser and taped her hands and feet together.

After she was bound to his sadistic satisfaction, he turned around and went up the latter-steps, leaving a terrified little girl behind him.


	5. Chapter 5

ROBIN SAT ON THE BED, SILENCED BY THE GAG. After what seemed like enough time to let a new generation of humans evolve, there was finally another noise coming from upstairs instead of the sounds of the mailman walking around and humming some song Robin didn't know near the trapdoor.

_KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK._

_Has he finally decided to come down here and untie me? _Robin wondered. Most of her doubted it, but the small glimmer of hope she still held that this was all a bad dream or hallucination finally dissolved when she realized that no one was coming down to the creepy mailman's kidnapping room. No one knew where she was, and no one ever would.

Robin Howell was officially wiped off the face of the earth.

She heard voices. Although she was bound and gagged, it didn't prevent her from hearing snippets of conversation as two new sets of boots made the floorboards creak above her. There were two new men in the mailman's house. Robin heard their conversation clearly though the floorboards.

"We're Detectives Burkhardt and Griffin. We're looking for a little girl who went missing earlier today. This is her."

Long pause. Then "I have never seen her. Feel free to look wherever you want."

Robin almost cried. There were two police detectives _right over her head, _and she couldn't do anything to tell them she was still alive.

She heard the clomping of boots as the two detectives looked around the house. "Nick, are you sure this is the right guy?" she heard one say.

"Hank, I am _sure _this is the right guy," the other argued. He assumed that this was Nick, and his buddy was Hank. "What's wrong, you don't trust me?"

"I do, it's just that there's no solid evidence connecting this guy to Robin's disappearance. There's nothing wrong about this guy except for being obsessed with needlepoint and figurine collecting. But that's not illegal." The other guy replied.

"It should be," the first guy muttered. "Those things give me the creeps."

Robin couldn't help thinking _Good point. _she glanced around at the creepy little dolls that lined the shelves of the kidnapping room. This Nick guy made a point. They gave her the creeps as well.

After some more clomping, the footsteps of the detectives faded away, and all was quiet except for the mailman still humming the same song.


	6. Chapter 6

SUDDENLY, ROBIN HEARD A _CRASH _AND THE SOUND OF splintering wood and shattering glass.

Loud, running footsteps above her.

A roar, like a wild animal going in for the kill.

Several grunts and a yelp of pain.

More shattering glass, splintering wood.

_BANG BANG BANG BANG. _

An animal's roaring death cry.

People came thundering into the house. "ROBIN!" A man's voice hollered. There was a crunch of glass and a softly muttered swear-word followed.

"ROBIN!"

"ROBIN!"

Two people were calling her, the detectives from before. Robin wanted to scream _I'M DOWN HERE! THERE'S A TRAP DOOR THAT LEADS TO A SECRET ROOM! HE ATTACKED ME AND KIDNAPPED ME AFTER I TOOK A SHORTCUT THROUGH THE WOODS! PLEASE TAKE ME HOME!_

But she couldn't, because that stupid, evil, creepy mailman had bound and gagged her.

Full of despair, Robin glanced hopelessly down at the floor. She saw a small puddle of water forming, and water was falling into it slowly, from a source somewhere above her head.

_DRIP. DRIP. DRIP._

__There was a single flower petalfloating in the water. That petal was like Robin's hope, floating in a puddle of dispair.

She heard a murmured "Oh my God." and the _SCRAPE SCRAPE SCRAPE _noise of the furniture being moved.

She had a sudden horrifying thought: What if the mailman was still in the house, and he was coming to get her?

She immediately went into a protective ball, her knees to her chest.

The trapdoor opened, and a man began walking down the stair.

Robin's vision blurred with tears of terror. She blinked them back. She heard her father's voice in her head, saying _"Be strong, Little Bird, be strong."_

But she didn't have to be strong, because the man wasn't the mailman- he was a totally different guy._  
_

He had dark hair and gray eyes and he was wearing a black leather jacket. His nose dripped blood and there was a bruise near his jaw. His forehead was scraped. He was holding his side like his ribs hurt. But he still managed to limp over to the bed and pull the cloth out of her mouth. He then proceeded to take the tape off her wrists and legs.

Then Robin did what any child would naturally do after being kidnapped and rescued- she began sobbing. She found her way to the warm body of her rescuer and wrapped her arms around him, her chest still heaving with sobs.

"It's OK now," he whispered. "We're gonna take you home."

She heard other footsteps and another man's voice saying "I don't know how you did it, but you did it."


	7. Chapter 7

THE EVENTS FOLLOWING WERE A WHIRLWIND FOR ROBIN.

The dark haired man carried her upstairs and out of the house.

His friend radioed for backup, and while they waited, the dark-haired detective, whose name Robin still wasn't sure of (she didn't know if he was "Nick" or "Hank") held her the whole time.

Flashing lights and sirens heralded the arrival of the Portland PD and an ambulance. The detective finally released Robin into the clutches of the paramedics that came with the ambulances.

Then her father's car pulled up and both her parents jumped out. "Mommy! Daddy!" She screamed. She squirmed away from the paramedics and ran into their arms.

"Robin!" He mother sobbed. Robin looked up at her Mommy's face. Her disappearance had taken its toll, obviously. Her eyes were red and puffy, like she'd been crying. But now she looked like the happiest woman alive.

"Where were you?! What happened?!" her father asked, but he didn't even bother to wait for a response before they went into a group hug.

After Robin and her parents finished hugging, she noticed that the detective who had rescued her was being loaded into one of the ambulances. His black eye was swollen shut and he looked worse than before. In a split-second decision to show her gratitude, Robin ran over and gave him the biggest hug she could muster.

Most of the people there agreed that it was the sweetest thing they had ever seen. One of the paramedics sniffled. One of the detective's co-workers had to wipe her eyes.

After they recovered from the touching scene, everyone went back to normal, but they were still haunted by the image of the rescued little girl giving her savior the best thank-you gift anyone could ask for.


	8. Author's Notes

**That's my story. I tried to stay as close to the details of the first episode as possible, with some minor changes because it was being told from a different point of view.**

**So, how did I do? Did I miss anything? **

**Comment please!**


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